Today many, if not most, professional or semi-professional sound, music, or like audio recordings are recorded and produced digitally. Similarly, audio that is broadcast both to an audience in an auditorium or like concert venue, or that is broadcast via radio or television is increasingly produced and/or transmitted digitally. In those processes, recording engineers typically use an audio digital audio workstation (“DAW”). However, despite the now nearly ubiquitous presence of digital recordings, music, and audio files, as well as the increasing presence of digital broadcasts, many artists, musicians, recording engineers, music producers, and audiophiles still prefer the sound of analog tape recordings over digital recordings because of the warmth, character, and nostalgic flavor of analog tape recordings.
Although there is a desire for the sound of analog recordings, there are a number of limitations that typically discourage any attempt to use a traditional multi-track analog tape recording system in combination with a DAW. First, many engineers and producers find that attempting to synchronize a traditional analog tape machine to a DAW to be problematic. For example, some of the problems engineers may encounter when trying to use analog tape machines in conjunction with a DAW include:
(1) Using the Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers (“SMPTE”) time code to synchronize the DAW with the tape machine. This sacrifices one of the tape tracks and wastes time waiting for the two devices to synchronize.
(2) Constant rewinding and fast forwarding of the analog tape machine. This takes time away from a session and hurts creative work flow.
(3) Having to transfer the analog tape recorded tracks into the DAW for editing. This is time consuming and breaks the creative work flow.
(4) Big bulky and expensive analog recording machines. Many studios are in people's homes now where space is limited and large format analog recorders are still very expensive.
(5) Live broadcast of audio performances are difficult to coordinate and manipulate without first digitizing the audio sounds.
In short, because of the difficulties of using a standard multi track analog tape recording system with a DAW, many engineers typically resort to using only a DAW to do all of their recording. Similarly, in a live broadcast context, the sounds are typically first digitized before being transmitted. In other words, engineers and producers sacrifice the warmth and pleasing sound of classic analog tape for the convenient but characterless and thin sound of digital recording.